


A Monstrous Proposal

by confusedkayt



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, The grimmest kind of fluff, proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-08-16 04:02:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8086336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/confusedkayt/pseuds/confusedkayt
Summary: It's been a fragile coming together in the wake of the death of the Great Red Dragon and their operatic plunge.  Hannibal and Will both grasp toward a sense of permanence, but their gifts carry the sweetness and sting of the gifts of the Magi.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [miraeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/miraeth/gifts).



> This piece would be a shadow of itself if it weren't for the tireless, thorough, thoughtful and interesting edits from @the-bees-patella (here on the archive footloose and hyphen-free as thebeespatella). She handheld me through several revisions and helped me push at concept, grammar, characterization, and everything in between. Any remaining mistakes and jejune prose came straight from me, but I really can't express how grateful I am for her generosity with her time.
> 
> How lucky I am to have been paired with Miraeth! Her artwork just snatched my breath. Take a look at those crazy details (I defy your heart not to melt when you realize that Hannibal must have squirreled away a framed picture of one of Will's dogs). And I just ~bathed~ in the fractured quality of the panels, which really worked with what I hoped for in the story!

Amazing art by the lovely @miraeth!  


“Love and large-hearted giving, when added together, can leave deep marks. It is never easy to cover these marks, dear friends— never easy.” - O. Henry, The Gift of the Magi

~~~~~~

The way the rough tiles dig into his knee. The way his trousers yank and bunch, the cut of them too tight for this position he’s put himself in. The sick-sweet scent of all of those red snapdragons, a bad brackish mix with the burnt-wax smell of the candles. The weight of the little box in his hand, the way it digs into his clenched fingers. Real. This is real, the shimmer-blur in his vision notwithstanding, the way Hannibal’s face is blank in a way he thought he’d never see again, at least not from the receiving end. This is real.

And oh, oh, there’s always a way that things can get worse. The way Hannibal’s face slides into a smooth social smile - of all the things he’d considered he hadn’t anticipated false joy. “I see,” Will says, and at least his voice is stable. It’s more than he can say for the rest of the world, drip-drip-blur at the edges and there’s roaring in his ears and water in his knees as he shake-shudders up from the floor, uneven path right out of the kitchen to somewhere, anywhere else.

“Will,” Hannibal calls behind him but it’s distant, faint through the rush in his ears and there are no footsteps behind him, Hannibal’s not following and that - that’s real, too.

He’s in the library and must’ve been for some time. The light has faded and there’s a glass of Scotch in his hand, lukewarm, watery with melted ice. It’s not the first time; time distorts itself around Hannibal, heartbeats eons apart, years vanishing between long swallows. But it’s been steady for a while now. Little minutes ticking along, little tasks that make up a life. Hannibal, watching him sidelong with that little downward curl of his mouth whenever Will brushes his teeth. Undershirts disappearing from the laundry, their brand new brothers folded just so in the left-side drawer, a finer weave than he’s used to, sliding and clinging strangely to his skin. That “philosophical” discourse on the distance modern man imposes between himself and his food that barely veiled a lecture on chopstick technique. Fussy re-setting of the pillowcases. Long spoiling dinners and longer glances, legs tangled under the sinful sheets of their shared bed. Their bed, and isn’t that something, it’s something, isn’t it, at least while it lasts.

Hannibal’s tablet sits on the writing desk like a rebuke. Eavesdroppers never hear any good, even if he told himself that it was _their_ tablet in this share-and-share-alike little keep they’d built against the rest of reality. Even if Hannibal had meant for him to see it, more likely than not, the research tabs and floor plans and neatly signed contract for a much bigger house far from here and close to civilization. Even now it sticks in his throat and packs his head with short dizzy panic.

The sharp shards of memory from another life are close and so, so easy to grasp right now. It had been perversely easier the first time. It had been so easy to be the Will Graham Molly liked best. A decent Italian restaurant, that blue blazer that made her eyes go dark and a shaky slide down after the dessert course and the words had caught in his throat but she’d smiled sun-bright and tipped forward to kiss them right back into them with a, “yes, Will, yes, of course yes” and she’d laughed when his hands shook so much that he’d dropped the ring right into the tiramisu. The curve of her tongue, playful and frank as she cleaned it off and helped him slide it on to the polite applause of the waiters and the little old lady at the next table over. He’s had so much more practice at being the Will Graham that Hannibal wants but that he himself can still live with, years and years of study and trial and error and still it’s landed him here, somehow.

Here. Alone, for once, in this nice little cabin for their nice little pretense. Four rooms that he just about has the measure of parked in the middle of a forest too big to measure even if he was up to adventures in the out of doors. He’s… used to it, now. Or getting used to it, anyway. Trying to. For all they’ve been dancing grand crescendos with each other for years on years they stumble on the intricate little steps that make up life measure-by-measure. Now that they’re just about healed up it’s been harder and he’s well aware that says nothing good about him. He’s not too sure there’s much good to be found in him, full stop, not anymore. Might be the last dregs of goodness are here in these four rooms, quarantine and incubator and fort that somehow now is manned by two.

Noise behind him and there’s the man himself. “Speak of the devil,” and Will’s voice has gone gravel but it doesn’t crack, thank god.

“And up he pops,” and Hannibal’s mouth is curved just so, as warm as his voice, as warm as his thigh when he crowds onto the little leather loveseat next to Will. Will flinches, just instinct, and Hannibal rests a hand on his knee as though to ground him. The force of his attention, wary as it is just now - it’s all heat and smoke. It makes the air too thick. “Darling boy,” he murmurs, and it’s so goddamn cautious, calculated down to the last consonant, “you never lose your capacity to surprise.”

“I thought you liked surprises,” and the bitterness he can’t filter out yields a clench of those fingers on his knee, denial and warning both.

“I have found,” and oh, the care in his diction, the controlled way that he tilts his head just so, the single strand of his hair falling into his eyes - it makes Will want to _hit him_ , “that I like the truth of you.”

He can’t control the chuckle that wrenches out of him. “Could’ve fooled me.”

Hannibal’s fingers dig cruelly at his knee now. The weight of his attention is a physical wrench; Will has to give him his eyes. Hannibal’s mouth’s too soft and there’s a lost look to him, almost frantic. “Will. Will. You must know…”

“I know you love me, Hannibal,” and that stops that silver tongue and the look of him- Will has to close his eyes, has to, “I’m just not sure that you like me very much.”

The fingers at his knee crush bruising tight. A long pause and he can hear Hannibal’s throat working. Guilt seeps up in his belly, just for a moment, almost enough to drown the cornered little animal trapped in his guts but then Hannibal’s murmuring something about small words for expansive truths and no, no, not this time. They’re too far down the track to save this crash for later. 

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice?” and there it is, that horrible high pitch. They’re flashing behind his eyes, a universe of little nudges and hints and instructions wrapped in soft words and sharp eyes and that’s just the _little things_ , the little day-to-day things held fast in this place where the only blood that gushes is their own. “You’re not as subtle as you think you are. Is there a single thing about me that you wouldn’t change?”

“Life is change,” and he stiffens at the platitude but soft fingers light on his jaw, a gentle suggestion that he’s pulled to heed. Hannibal’s eyes are soft and serious. “Yours more than most. It is my great privilege to stand beside you in the rush of the stream.” Hannibal’s mouth curves, fond and helpless. “Will. Will. You force Fate’s hand at her spindle.”

His stomach a roiling sea of warm and terror, hiss and rush of waves inside and around him and it’s so much, too much. “I doubt Fate cares much about how I brush my teeth,” and it comes out straight poison. Hannibal’s hands clench on him.

“I have to wonder about the events of this evening,” and he’s stiff with hurt, “if my company is so intolerable to you.”

There’s guilt, now, an overwhelming rush and damn if it doesn’t help drown out the rest. “I want to keep you,” and god, god, he can’t look right at the cracks he’s chiseling in Hannibal’s face. “I thought you would want that too.”

“I would have thought it would be an occasion for some joy,” and the tiny vulnerable thread in that steady voice accomplishes what the pressure of Hannibal’s hand on his face couldn’t. Will can’t help but look at him, really look, and how had he missed the almost resigned terror churning around under the falsely calm surface. Slipping into Hannibal’s easy as slipping into the surf, these days, too easy and so dangerous but oh, he’s in it now, the covetous depthless yearning, the knife-edged rocks alternately exposed and hidden by the churn even now. Especially now - constant company and daily delights shot through with Will’s little snap-snarls and the closed set of his shoulders. Volatile, dancing on the edge of a long drop and they’re so high now it will be, must be, fatal. So much farther to fall, now, farther than even the clawing screaming descent in the Baltimore kitchen just after soft words and the specter of a shared life. The soft spring of the Primavera tilting down down down to a cold basement where Hannibal dreads to tread, now more than ever when a switchblade sits on a rack of the family vintage gathering dust. Finally, finally, shared pleasure and a conscious embrace - preludes, of course, to a fall. And now flowers and flames and a question sweet and sudden as the memory of a dream and just as carefully spun from Hannibal’s own secret self. At such a height, the precipice yawns straight down to jagged icy hooves.

The vertiginous void behind them and Will lays his hand over Hannibal’s, meant to steady but, oh, he doesn’t miss that tiny twitch, just the barest hint of a flinch and his stomach twists up sick because Will’s _trained_ him to do it. He is the cause of the climb and the fall both and they can’t help but hurt each other and that’s when they’re actively trying not to. He wants to be soft, wants to give this to Hannibal, that was the whole idea, and how foolish he’d been to think his softness was safe for even this man. “I wanted to make a memory,” and his voice is so soft, so soft, the better to coax that haunting dangerous edge of fear away from his dreadful love. “Something grand. I thought…” The logic of it is tangled, now, resists his words. “Wanted to be just what you wanted.”

Hannibal turns his head, a gentle brush of lips across their joined fingers. _You are,_ he hears as clearly as if it had been said out loud. He hears, too, the wariness, still, winds in the canyon and the lead lump in his belly knows Hannibal is right to worry. It’s easier, now, to parse the reasons for his panic when he’d seen the papers for the new house. He wants to keep Hannibal, keep this fragile thing between them sheltered and safe and away from harsh lights and strange voices and the siren song of other blood. His eyes slide over to the tablet and Hannibal tracks it. “Don’t you like it here?”

Another brush of lips across their fingers. “Saints have never known such ecstasy,” and there’s a hint of a tease in there. Will takes a full breath and he hadn’t known he couldn’t before. Some amorphous storm is behind them now, and this, this life that chose him where a fight without violence feels like victory and hollow lack both. It’s always a fist plunged right into the warm writhing guts of him, that terrible fathomless tenderness and there full force of it is right there all over Hannibal’s face. “The gifts of the Magi are the most precious, after all,” and that’s another eye-roller but it tugs a smile out of Will regardless. He tugs at the long ends of Hannibal’s hair, warm with the skin of his neck, and gets that little ghost smile in return.

He’s almost giddy with it, adrenaline of crisis averted and that inconvenient driving passion. “You wanna play house?” he says, and Hannibal nips at his fingers.

“Dreadful creature,” he grumbles, draws their joined hands away from his face, tangles his fingers together with Will’s on his lap, a living tether to the here and now. “Is it so strange that I would want to create for us a home?” Will swallows the impulse to look around at this place, this cozy little place where they’ve been learning the way of each other when the arms aren’t already in hand. Hannibal’s look is knowing, nonetheless. He leans forward to grasp the tablet one-handed and pulls up the plans at the heart of this mess, tugs gently on Will’s hand. “Here, a garage. A mud room.” A wry set to that hopeful tilt in his lips. “A fenced yard. And here, a room for the instruments. You will only hear me play when you wish to.” Soft eyes and persuasion and that terrifying vulnerability right there, at the surface now. “Silence, when you wish it.” Will feels an eyebrow rise and Hannibal dips his head just so. “Or when I do.” It’s Hannibal’s turn, now, to glance around the womb that’s kept them safe and close while they knit together. “A little boat, no matter how safe, is not the world, Will. We neither of us thrive in captivity.”

It’s Will’s turn to swallow, to choke down a sharp retort because it’s true, isn’t it, that that’s part of what he wanted, most of it, even, and there it is again, the awful crushing exposure of it and of course, of course he is not enough, can’t save the world from Hannibal - god, god, from _both of them,_ not even with the bulwark of his body and every last scrap of his attention.

Hannibal tugs their joined hands, trying, oh, trying to draw him into his pretty painting of the future, so confident this fragile detente will survive outside of its shell. “I want to walk in the garden with you at my side. There is so much, Will, so much for us.”

That’s one thing you want, he thinks, and then there’s the rest of it, the slick slide of intestines between his fingers and the _rightness_ he can’t hide from even from himself and that’s without Hannibal’s whispers in his ear.

It is an inevitability. He knows, now, that it always was. It’s embarrassing, almost, that he thought otherwise. And so he smiles, a little shaky, sure, but this is the battle and not the war. There will be walks in the park and long, long operas and new rooms to christen, new pleasures and distractions and he can’t stop it but he can slow it until… Until.

“So we’re moving,” and there’s enough real happiness there on Hannibal’s face to make the smugness just about tolerable. “And I… I’m calling a do-over,” and god help him but something in him melts at Hannibal’s little mouth-twitch at his inelegant phrasing when there is a perfectly good teacup coming together in the sheen of his eyes.

For now. Until. And then he’s tugged into a kiss and there’s lush softness of Hannibal’s lips before the inevitable snag of his sharp sharp teeth.

**Author's Note:**

> I could not even resist a Modest Proposal pun for the title. I have to think Hanners would reluctantly approve of my cannibal pun game. :D
> 
> I set out to write a fluffy, happy engagement fic and, well, here we are. (Wellntruly helped me realize that most of my writing ought to come with the warning tag "attempts to impose fluff were SHOT THROUGH WITH TRAGEDY" and that seems awful apropos here.) I was trying to think about the circumstances under which a proposal could arise, and keep coming back to The Gift of the Magi. It is and always will be one of my favorite short stories (here, if you haven't had the pleasure: https://www.auburn.edu/~vestmon/Gift_of_the_Magi.html) The heavy sense of destruction inherent in a fervent love really pings my Hannigram-dar. Their respective "gifts" to each other and the manner of their delivery felt a little inevitable after that. Of COURSE Hannibal would be high-handed and a little secretive. Of COURSE Will would be reactive and as grandiose as the person he was reacting to. I hope this also felt true to you!
> 
> I guess my other driving motivator was the dreadful realization that Will has been VERY prone to dealing his worst blows to Hannibal in the immediate wake of the sweetest moments he offers to Hannibal. I hope that came through int he story, and would love to discuss the idea with you in the comments or elsewhere. :D


End file.
